Many of the people I’ve worked with in the last 20 years are parents who experienced a traumatic family event. Now, their own children struggle with a similar situation. My goal is to help everyone get through it in the best way possible, which is not always easy, depending on the circumstances you find yourself in and the mindset of the people who are involved. Even some of the professionals have scars that they carry, scars that create their own toxic contributions to conflict or family drama. Still, no one should ever give up hope for a better family life.

I enjoy working with parents, regardless of what they have done in the past or how difficult their situations may appear on the surface. While many shy away from “high conflict” families, I tend to embrace them, especially when I can work one on one with them. Why? Why do I do it? It can certainly be painful and stressful. It is often hard to watch parents who are hurting their children. Many of them do not even realize their part in the struggle, but for those who take the little seed that I plant and let it grow, the results are amazing. For that reason, even if there might only be a handful in hundreds, I am compelled to continue working with parents. Once someone works through pain, trauma, abuse or anger and recognizes their own piece in the relationship puzzle, their eyes are opened. They cannot un-know what they know. They cannot undo the past, but they can create their future. It is a blessing to see and the effects are not just in them, but ripple to others, children, friends, neighbors, and the community. Parents willing to self reflect out of pain and into peace to be awesome role models for their children are the greatest parents I know and I admire them deeply!

Please go see the movie, “I Can Only Imagine”. I can already see the greatest within, even simply from getting a couple of minutes worth of a glimpse. Have a glimpse of faith and hope. I pray it plants a seed in you!

When I started my journey to help parents, the goal was to save them from the confusion I knew they felt and to make their journey shorter and less painful than the one I had walked. I felt called to be a guide, a teacher and provide comfort when I could. I never promised to have all the answers. We are all human, after all. We need that higher power. We need to believe in something greater than ourselves. We need hope that there is much more to the journey than our current situation. We need hope.

I spent the time of my story all alone. I was alone because I could not find anyone else who really understood. I started out scared and alone, just me and my two boys, but I did ask God for help. I did not think he was helping so I quickly dismissed God and searched for someone or something else. When I did that, there was nothing but me and the prison I was building for myself.

When I was finally tired of my lonely misery and found no one else who understood or had real knowledge I turned back to God and found he was always there. He had never left me. I was simply refusing to see him, to hear him and to trust him. When I gave in to what he was doing, my life changed. I was freed from a prison that really only existed in my own mind. The door had always been open for me to walk through.

I was blessed and I wanted to share that blessing, that peace, that freedom with others who were held captive in their imaginary prisons. I wanted them to see what I finally saw. The door to your prison is already open. You simply have to walk through it!

I went on to walk a new journey of helping parents escape the pain of divorce and high conflict custody battles. Those who are open to change receive great rewards. I share with them the secret to conquering Family Court and painful relationships.

While I am a mediator, parenting consultant, and parenting time expeditor in Minnesota, and I enjoy that work to a degree, those roles offer limited success. Results depend on the good faith of the individuals involved. The success or failure comes from the skills and abilities of the parents themselves and their desire to escape their own prison.

What I really enjoy is teaching. It is in the one on one work that I do where I see dramatic results for parents. It even works for high conflict families. How wonderful it is to see fear and anxiety replaced with peace and confidence and to see that spill over for children. Parents living peace and confidence are able to offer so much more to their children than are parents who struggle with pain and trauma. Pain and trauma will not help you find your way out of a paper bag! Pain, trauma and the stress of a journey through the darkness of family court, leaves you stuck. Fumbling and stumbling because you aren’t aware of your true power makes you rely on professionals to light the way. What you do not realize is most of the professionals don’t know the way either. Even if they do, the professionals will not light your path for you. They are trying to show you where the light is. You have to take it. It is not the lawyer’s job to teach you. It is not the mediator’s job to teach you. It isn’t the parenting coordinator’s job to teach you. In some cases, I have made it my job to teach, but I can only do that in the one-on-one services I provide. I’ve decided that will be my main focus in this coming year and beyond.

I will show you the way and offer guidance, but the work is up to you and you alone. It is not easy, but you can free yourself and your children from the pain and trauma of Family Court and High Conflict divorce. Even when your co-parent keeps inflicting more and more control, financial hardship and fear on you, there are ways to expose their attacks for what they are and find peace for your own house.

The goal of our the programs offered at Life’s Doors Mediation is to clue you in to what you do not understand so that you can free yourself from a narcissistic ex, a bipolar co-parent, toxic co-parenting and really understand why it is you feel so trapped. We also share with you the truth about Family Court professionals. Why don’t they seem to know what they are doing? Why don’t lawyers help you? Why don’t parenting consultants seem to care about domestic abuse? We have programs that are specifically created to help victims of domestic violence. Check out our program, Victim in the System.

You have nothing to lose! If you have tried everything else and found no help, why not try something new in this New Year? Pick our brains as to why your situation seems so backwards and upside down.

While Life’s Doors Mediation can only provide mediation, parenting consulting and parenting time expeditor services to parents in Minnesota, our coaching and educational programs are without limits. We can assist anyone in the United States, or even the world, to move beyond the prison of Family Court. You owe it to yourself and your children to try something new! It is always a free consult. What have you got to lose?

This piece, about what happens to the people that leave relationships abruptly and/or with deception, caused quite a stir on Facebook recently. The comments fell into two camps: “Thank you for validating my experience” and “I’m the one who left my marriage and I’m tired of being painted as the bad guy.” The reaction got me […]

As someone who has been working for almost 20 years to help parents navigate the very choppy waters of family court, I get a fair amount of calls and emails from parents who feel overwhelmed with how off track their case has become. High conflict cases snowball into unimagineable craziness and parents desperately want […]

Life’s Doors Mediation has developed an online training center called High Conflict U. I am dedicated to making things better for divorced parents everywhere. For 2018 I plan to go full force forward with a focus on education. Knowledge is power! Nowhere does this ring more true than it does for divorced parents caught up in Family Court.

High Conflict U offers a free e-course to learn everything you wanted to know about parenting time expeditors ( a role exclusive to the state of Minnesota ) and Parenting Consultant/Coordinators. Enroll now to learn about these important roles for your family.

We live in an age where state authorities have taken it upon themselves to mandate relationships. As crazy as it sounds, that is what they do. We also have the court system creating syndromes where none exist. This is done so that people who are incapable of developing and maintaining relationships on their own, can force others to be in relationship with them. We have judges who want to play along in this little game of mandating relationships, and lawyers who allow it to happen because they can earn a lot of money doing so.

Read the latest, in a string of state control over children, from West Bloomfield, Michigan:

This is all such a farce for several reasons! First off, I contend that only an abusive parent would force their children to have a relationship with them. As difficult as it is, if the other parent is lying about you, but you are able to spend time with your children, the children will know how you treat them when they are with you. Children know. Children are not stupid. Children come to know the truth, as they experience it, not by what is written, not by what is told to them, but by their life experience of the time they spend with you.

Background Image courtesy of arztsamui at freedigitalphotos.net

Why this judge is participating in a farce:

1. The state’s only interest in the parent-child relationship is due to the state ensuring “the Best Interest of the Child”. Removing children from the safety of their home and both parents is not in their best interest, and will harm them in a FAR greater way than if they are not spending time with one parent. It may be harmful if they are being denied time with a parent, but we all know that children find a way to do what they want to do, especially as they get older.

2. If this judge truly believes that PAS is the problem here, then she would hold the mother accountable and not the children. Stop punishing the victims!

3. A reasonable parent would realize that court “forced” interaction with anyone will not deepen anyone’s affection for you. Maybe the father should ask for court ordered therapy sessions where they may get to the bottom of what is happening and work on their relationship. This would afford an opportunity to repair a broken relationship, and not demand “parental rights”.

I realize that there is much more to ANY court story than meets the eye. I will try and research this case to find out more information, but until then, on the surface, it is pretty pathetic. Both parents and the professionals on this case are failing the children and I hope, for the children’s sake, that someone will do the right thing!

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Disclaimer

The information on this blog is based on personal opinions and insight. The writer is not an attorney or licensed psychologist.
Personal stories are shared to raise awareness.
The purpose is to help people disengage from the Family Court System and move into a happier and healthier life, but is not meant as legal advice or therapy.
If you need legal or psychological
advice, please seek the help of those professionals.